WHAT HAPPENED?: Nothing wrong with a little star bashing now and then. But it’s time that we give Matt Lauer and Lindsay Lohan a rest. Photo: ZUMAPRESS.com

WHAT HAPPENED?: Nothing wrong with a little star bashing now and then. But it’s time that we give Matt Lauer and Lindsay Lohan a rest. (
)

Matt Lauer and Lindsay Lohan each incited so much hatred and online vitriol this week that you’d think they were the ones who cast the first stones in the Middle East.

Both became targets of venomous tweets, postings and videos because, well, close as I can figure, they didn’t please all of the people all of the time on TV.

The hatred of Matt which, for no particular reason, has been slowly building, boiled over on Thanksgiving of all days, when he was forced to read the boring NBC copy for the Macy’s Parade.

No, he didn’t drop an “F” bomb like Joe Scarborough did a few years ago on “Morning Joe,” nor like Tom Hanks did recently on “GMA.”

What Lauer did was mispronounce the song title, “S’ wonderful.”

I swear. He said, “Ess-Wonderful.” OK the only “Ess” any New Yorker knows is “Ess-A-Bagel,” but still.

Jeez, I would have said a lot worse if I had to keep pushing merch and all those action-stopping acts (Don McLean? Are you kidding?).

NBC suits fear the hatred comes from the firing of Ann Curry. What? Who ever woke up in the morning saying, “Can’t wait to see what Ann Curry is up to today!”

It has more to do with Lauer’s giant salary. For $25 million big ones, people demand perfection, and from the tweets of it, a full head of hair.

Good thing he didn’t mispronounce “Snoopy.” He’d probably be in protective custody.

Then on Sunday night, more hatred came twittering out the second the “Liz & Dick” movie began on Lifetime. Tweeters along with critics attacked Lohan personally for her portrayal of Liz Taylor. They acted as though she were doing a campy Mother Teresa impersonation, not aping a movie star who had the same problems as she has. Two things here? Lifetime movies are supposed to be cheesy and over-the-top movies for women. Why were men watching this thing in the first place?

More to the point — Lohan did a credible job with a cheesy script. In real life Liz Taylor drank like Lohan, dressed like Elvis, ate like Rosie and had a bespangled Michael Jackson as her best friend. It just doesn’t get campier — or cheesier than that.

*

Half-a-man Angus T. Jones offered a half-hearted apology on Tuesday for dissing “Two and a Half Men,” which has made him millions. “I apologize if my remarks reflect me showing indifference to and disrespect of my colleagues,” he said in a statement after calling the series “filth.”

Jones went from spewing incoherently to a formerly Satan-possessed minister on Monday to speaking in tongues on Tuesday. That tongue is called “Legalize.” No wonder the kid is acting like Charlie Sheen not on crack — they got him all lawyer’d up.